TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 1153 
pressive moral precepts of his philosophic priests. Guidance, truly, is here enough 
and to spare; but how is the bewildered statesman to select his guidance when his 
sociological doctors exhibit this portentous disagreement ? 
Nor is it only that they adopt diametrically opposite conclusions: we find that 
each adopts his conclusion with the most serene and complete indifference to the 
line of historical reasoning on which his brother sociologist relies. SchiatHe, e.g., 
appears not to have the least inkling of the array of facts which have convinced 
Spencer that the recent movement towards increased industrial intervention of 
government in Germany and England is causally connected with the contem- 
poraneous recrudescence of ‘militancy’ in the two countries. And similarly, when 
Spencer explains how, under a régime of private property and free contract, there 
is necessarily a ‘correct apportioning of reward to merit,’ so that each worker 
‘obtains as much benefit as his efforts are equivalent to—no more and no less,’ he 
exhibits a total ignorance of the crushing refutation which, according to Schafile, 
this individualistic fallacy has received at the hands of socialism, The tendency 
of: free competition to annihilate itself, and give birth to monopolies exercised 
against the common interest for the private advantage of the monopolists; the 
crushing inequality of industrial opportunities, which the legal equality and freedom 
of modern society has no apparent tendency to correct; the impossibility of re- 
munerating by private sale of commodities some most important services to the 
community ; the unforeseen fluctuations of supply and demand which a world-wide 
organisation of industry brings with it, liable to inflict, to an increasing extent, un- 
deserved economic ruin upon large groups of industrious workers ; the waste incident 
to the competitive system, through profuse and ostentatious advertisements, needless 
multiplication of middle-men, inevitable non-employment, or half-employment, of 
many competitors; the demoralisation, worse than waste, due to the reckless or 
fradulent promotion of joint-stock companies, and to the gambling rife in the great 
markets, and tending more and more to spread over the whole area of production 
—such points as these are unnoticed in the broad view which our English socio- 
logist takes of the modern industrial society gradually emancipating itself from 
militancy: it never enters his head that they can have anything to do with 
causing the movement towards socialism to which his German confrére has 
yielded.? 
_ However, whether Spencer or Schiiffle is a true prophet—whether the decay of 
war will bring us to a more complete individualism, or whether the increasing scale of 
the organisation of industry and its increasingly marked deficiencies are preparing 
the way for socialism—cannot certainly be known before a date more or less dis- 
tant. But as Comte’s sociological treatise was written a generation ago, we are 
fortunately able to bring his very definite predictions and counsels to the test of 
accomplished facts. In 1854 he announced that the transition which was to 
terminate the Western Revolution would be organised from Paris, the ‘religious 
metropolis of regenerate humanity,’ where an ‘irreversible dictatorship’ had just 
been established, within the space of a generation. In the initial phase of the 
transition, which ought to last about seven years, perfect freedom of the press 
would ‘rapidly extinguish journalism,’ owing to the ‘inability of the journal to 
compete with the placard.’ By a ‘judicious use of placards, with a few occasional 
pamphlets,’ Positivism would regenerate public opinion. The budget of the clergy, 
the University of France, the Academy of Sciences must be suppressed, and the 
roximate abolition of copyright announced. By these moderate measures Louis 
apoleon’s irreversible dictatorship might be ‘ perfected and consolidated,’ so that 
the dictator might assume complete legislative power, reducing the Representative 
Assembly—which would sit once in three years—to the purely financial function 
of voting the budget. In the second phase of the transition, which should last 
about five years, the ‘dictatorial government now unquestionably progressive,’ 
would suppresss the French army, substituting a constabulary of 80,000 gendarmes. 
This would suffice to maintain order, internal and external, as the oppressive 
1 See Schiiffle’s ‘Kritik der kayitalistischen Epoche,’ in Bau und Leben des socialen 
KGrpers, vol. iii. pp. 419-457. 
1885. 45 
